


i won't give it up (now your heart is in my hands)

by estel_willow



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: A little bit of angst, Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, coda to 1x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 18:32:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18643732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estel_willow/pseuds/estel_willow
Summary: 5 times Alex reminded himself to breathe and one time he didn't have to.Alex’s lips curl up in spite of himself. He thinks about looking at Kyle and sayingliteral skeletonsand wonders how it’s fair that they’re still in synch when they’re anything but. Alex finally clawed himself up to be on Michael’s page but Michael had ended the chapter and moved on.





	i won't give it up (now your heart is in my hands)

i.

The first time he finds out that Maria and Michael are making it work, Alex feels his chest tightening, a surge of white-hot pain and disappointment rippling through him, tugging deep in his stomach. The blood pounds in his ears and he thinks about the hours he spent sitting at Michael’s airstream, just waiting for him to come home so they could talk, like Michael had promised they would. Like Alex had promised. 

He’s in the Crashdown when he figures it out because Liz’s expression shifts like she’s hiding something and she tells him  _I didn’t want to be the one to let you know_  and there’s guilt written all over her face. It’s like when she looks at him, she can see that she’s made the wrong decision in even remotely encouraging Maria to go after what she wants, that maybe this was the wrong thing to do. Maybe she was supposed to have said that you can’t control who you fall for but you can control how you handle those feelings. 

He grips his milkshake and grits his teeth, forcing a breath in through lungs that don’t want to cooperate, forcing his spinning mind to calm and still and he thinks about Doctor Carson and her soothing voice as she tells him  _when it gets too much, Alex, just breathe. One deep breath in and one deep breath out. You control your emotions. You control your memories. You decide when you think about them._

He ignores Liz’s apologies and closes his eyes.

He breathes. He makes himself breathe.   
  


ii.

“Manes,” Michael says as Alex climbs out of his truck. His feet are uneven on the ground, he has a new prosthetic that he’s trying to wear in and the socket’s a little too loose to account for swelling. Pain radiates up his thigh and along his hips but it’s nothing he hasn’t felt before. It’s nothing compared to the way his breath’s stolen at the knowledge that now he doesn’t even get a first name from Michael.

They haven’t seen each other in a while, Alex passed him in the Pony once or twice and Michael didn’t acknowledge him much. He isn’t sure if that’s because he read the note Alex left behind for him or if it’s because he didn’t. But Alex is tired of secrets and he’s tired of lies and he’s tired of not saying what he wants to say.

“Guerin,” is what comes out of his mouth when he wanted to say  _Michael_. He reaches back into the car and it’s the moment he needs to look away from where Michael’s eyes are boring holes into his very being ( _I never look away, not really_ ) has become something they share between them, Alex never wanted to look away either but now Michael’s too much for him. Sitting in a beaten up garden chair with a beer resting on his thigh, looking for all the world like he doesn’t give a shit about anything. 

When he emerges he feels a little better. It’s fifteen seconds for him to grab his bag but it’s fifteen seconds more than he would have had to pull his shit together if he’d just walked straight over. He looks at Michael again and that vice is back around his chest. 

_One breath in, one breath out. Just breathe, Manes._

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Private?” Michael’s voice drawls over the wrong rank, he knows it makes the hair on Alex’s arms stand on end and Alex can hear the careful distance in Michael’s tone. He hates that his body reacts to Michael’s mocking with warmth and heat and want. 

“I’m not the one that’s been avoiding me,” Alex points out. Michael’s barely looked in his direction since he decided to try and make things work with Maria and Alex pretends it doesn’t hurt even though it does. 

Alex knows he hit something on the head there because Michael’s expression shifts ever so slightly. He sees him move on the chair, fingers tighten around his beer (and it’s true, as Alex looks at Michael’s hand he can see the lack of scarring, the straightened fingers, it’s healed and the last physical mark of what the Manes family has done to Michael really is gone). 

“You didn’t answer my question, Alex.”

Alex lifts his eyes from Michael’s hand. Nods his head. Clenches his teeth and walks closer, ignoring the burning in his thigh. He doesn’t fall into the seat on the other side of the fire pit, instead, he takes another breath and pulls his bag open, pulling out the pink, iridescent shard. 

“I have something that belongs to you.”  
  


iii.

Alex thinks he’ll reach out with his powers to take the shard but he doesn’t. He gets to his feet, walks towards Alex and his hand’s lifted like he’s trying to keep Alex still, trying to stop him from running away. Alex couldn’t run right now, even if he wanted to. He wants to. He doesn’t want Michael to get into his space when he can’t have him. When he isn’t supposed to reach out and touch him. When he breathes in and all he can smell is Michael’s cologne and sweat and grease. When he breathes in and it smells more like home than anything Alex has ever known.

Michael stops within an inch of their feet touching and Alex holds his breath. He tenses his shoulders and his core. Tells himself not to sway forward into Michael’s orbit like the helpless fucking satellite that he is. He can feel the way Michael’s eyes sweep over him and then his eyebrow lifts. The curl that perpetually hangs above his right eye bounces with the tilt of Michael’s head and Alex’s hands physically hurt with the need to push it aside, to bury his fingers deep in that hair and tug Michael to him and fuse their souls together.

“Jacket looks good,” Michael says and Alex has to look down at his sleeve to remember that he’s in the leather jacket again today. He likes it, it feels comfortable and heavy enough that on days when the world is too much he can sink into the weight and feel the pressure over his shoulders like the hug he really needs. 

“Thanks.” Alex manages roughly and doesn’t look back up again. The shard’s in his hand but Michael hasn’t seemed to pay it any mind. Alex can feel the weight of Michael’s gaze on him and he swallows, pushing the shard into the space between their bodies and he ignores the way his whole skin burns when Michael’s fingers trail up to take hold of it, carving a path over Alex’s exposed wrist with the flames of his touch. 

“Where’d you find this?” 

“Jim Valenti’s cabin. He has- uh, he has a hidden underground bunker.”

Michael lets out a laugh. “Any dead bodies in there?”

Alex’s lips curl up in spite of himself. He thinks about looking at Kyle and saying  _literal skeletons_  and wonders how it’s fair that they’re still in synch when they’re anything but. Alex finally clawed himself up to be on Michael’s page but Michael had ended the chapter and moved on. 

“No, just more secrets.” 

He pushes the piece against Michael’s chest, uses it as a moment to break himself away from Michael so that he doesn’t lean in. It’s a barrier and it works perfectly and he takes a step backwards. Subtly sucks air into his lungs -  _one deep breath in one deep breath out_  - to force the words out of his mouth.

“I can’t be the one that keeps you here.”

He starts moving but Michael’s fingers lock around his wrist, tugging him gently to a halt. 

“You can’t say shit like that and then just leave, Alex,” Michael says and Alex presses his lips together.

Alex gently tugs his hand out from Michael’s grasp and feels the cold penetrating his soul.

“I think that’s the last piece you needed,” is what he says as he turns and walks away again. He hears Michael scoffing and he thinks about Maria and how she’s better for him than Alex could ever be. And how he wants Michael to be happy even if that isn’t with him.  
  


iv.

“I’m sorry.” It’s not the words he’s expecting to hear and the voice that’s saying them isn’t one he expects to hear either. Maria comes out from around the side of the cabin, twisting her ring around her middle finger and looking uncomfortable. Her hair’s back in a messy bun and she doesn’t look anything like the confident, fiery woman that Alex knows and loves. He thought, once, that if he was into women she’d have been the kind of woman he’d fall for. He’s changed his mind since then, betrayal has a way of making you figure a person differently.

Still, he’s missed her. She was always Rosa’s friend first, and theirs second but after Rosa died she’d clung to them tightly. She’d taken them to be her own little family. Alex adores her still, even though the hurt is fresh. 

“What for?” he asks, not looking up from where he’s been tuning his guitar, he’s seen her in his peripheral vision, that’s enough for now. His fingers curl around the frets and he twists the pin, plucking the string again and tilting his head, eyes closed as he tries to picture what the right note is without needing to use the machine to his left to help him. 

Maria sighs and Alex can hear it in his bones. 

“You know what for.”

Alex tightens the pin further and hears the string groan. He shakes his head. He thinks about her telling him it meant nothing, he thinks about her telling him that she would never do that. He thinks about the times when he’d thought if he could trust anyone with how he truly felt about Guerin it would be her and then she settles down and plays the closest thing to house that Michael will allow. 

“You don’t have to apologise,” he says and it feels like he’s walking the floorboards of déja-vu. They’ve had this conversation before. “Michael and I-”

“I didn’t know it wasn’t over.”

Alex lets out a bitter laugh. “Is that what he told you? That it was over?” He shakes his head. “You’re about three months too late to ask me if I’m okay with this, Maria.”

“I know.”

“Then what?”

“You know I don’t need your permission, Alex.”

“I never said you did, but it might have been nice for you both to talk to me before deciding to give whatever it is a shot.” His voice catches and he gets to his feet, pushes himself up and puts the guitar on the seat he’s vacated. “You know how I feel, Maria. I’d have  _never_  done that to you.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Maria says and she steps forward like she’s going to touch Alex. He holds up his hand to stop her. “I- I found something out about him and I think you know and I just- I need to talk to someone who understands.”

Alex’s chest flutters and tightens and he realises that Michael told her the truth and he catches his weight on the wall and waves her inside. She goes, sparing him a concerned glance that Alex dutifully ignores, giving himself thirty seconds before following her to mentally prepare himself for the conversation he’s about to have.

_One deep breath in and one deep breath out._  
  


v.

“Careful,” he says, as he drops into the bunker, climbing down the last rung of the ladder, “the bunker’s open. Anyone could walk in.”

He can smell the acetone in the air. The console looks completed, or at least, Alex thinks it looks completed, it’s humming and the air feels electrified like there’s a charge running through it that can’t be stopped or contained. Michael’s in the corner, slumped over a beaten up sofa that’s probably older than the both of them combined that he dragged out of a skip. 

“Anyone just did,” comes the response and Alex recognises that tone. Heartbreak. Sadness. Grief. 

He presses his lips together and tries to remember a time Michael’s voice didn’t sound sad or broken. He thinks it was that split second moment of perfection when he realised Alex had stayed. His voice had broken with something different, then, hope maybe? Happiness? It’s been such a long time since he’s made Michael happy that he’s forgotten what it sounds like. 

His chest hurts just thinking about it. He rubs at it absently as he walks over to where Michael’s lying on the couch. There are empty bottles everywhere, beer and acetone alike and hardly any food and Alex frowns, perches on the edge of the couch and pretends not to notice how Michael flinches as though he’s expecting Alex to rip his heart out. It’s already got too many boot prints on it, he thinks. He doesn’t want to add another while his one from before is still healing. A boot print he never wanted to leave in the first place but had imprinted before he’d realised what he was doing. 

“Maria came to see me a couple of days ago,” he starts, and Michael goes stiff again and Alex can’t breathe so he reaches out and pushes his hand into Michael’s hair and they both pretend Michael doesn’t chase the contact like the touch-starved adult he is. They both pretend it doesn’t loosen a knot in their chest and that it doesn’t make it easier for them both to hand this moment, to breathe. 

“She hates us, you know. For what we did to her mom.”

“You didn’t do anything,” Alex points out. The realisation that Mimi had been targeted by an alien with powers similar to Isobel’s had been a shock. It had been worse to find evidence that strongly supported Alex’s suspicion that it had been done on the order of Jesse Manes. All he could do was try and burn his father’s legacy to the ground, even if he ended up going down in flames with it. A blaze of glory that would never be sung about. Righting a wrong because he’s the only one that can do it. 

Michael’s quiet for a moment before Alex feels a hand on his knee, warmth burning through his jeans like a brand.  _One deep breath in and one deep breath out._  “Neither did you.”

It sounds like forgiveness and Alex’s chest bursts.  
  


+i.

“Will you stop?” Michael slaps Alex’s hand away from the tie Alex is struggling with and finishes tying it up, then tugs on it lightly to loosen it. Alex squints up at Michael, frustrated and annoyed that it’s taking them so long to just put on suits and get ready. They’ve had hours (but it is hard to get ready when you can’t stop yourself from touching your partner, pulling him into kisses that make you forget what day it is let alone what you’re supposed to be getting ready for) and they’re still not truly prepared to step out of the cabin. 

“You’re the one that messed it up the first three times I managed to get it tied,” Alex points out with a grin and Michael kisses his temple, then stands behind Alex as he fusses with the top button of his shirt before deciding _fuck it_. The only reason they’re in suits is because Michael can’t say no to Isobel and when she caught wind of what they were trying to do had come in like a hurricane to organise and plan everything.

It’s still their day, even if it’s got the stamp of Isobel Evans all over it. 

Michael’s hands are resting loosely around Alex’s waist, his chin atop Alex’s shoulder and they make eye contact in the mirror. They’re in matching suits, dark blue, and their cufflinks are stars. Alex has an earring in, just the one, and Michael nips below it playfully. Alex closes his eyes.

“Stop it,” he mutters, “you’ll make us late.”

“Can’t be late for our own wedding,” Michael mutters, lips against already sensitive skin and Alex just tilts his head to the side and lets out a shuddered breath and realises that it’s been so long that he can’t remember what it’s like to struggle to breathe. 

(At least, not until they get to the makeshift altar with Max standing with a bolo and a massive grin and suddenly Alex’s world is real and bright and everything he never thought he could have and Michael’s in his space, hands cupping his face and stealing a chaste kiss, thumbs brushing along the sharp lines of his cheekbones and whispering  _breathe, Alex, breathe._  And he does. _)_

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to the prompt 'breathe' for the incredible [See_Addy_Write](https://archiveofourown.org/users/see_addy_write/pseuds/see_addy_write/works?fandom_id=29002712). Hope you like it!
> 
> I've never written a five times fic before, it was fun!


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